Ten Merit Badges Girl Scouts Will Earn in the Apocalyptic Future

(Ed. Note: People may draw the wrong conclusion on that sentence, Jef. Author's Note: What? I wanted to know when they were going to be selling cookies. Why else would a grown man be on the Girl Scout.... Oh.)

Sigh. The Girl Scouts of America have updated their merit badge list for the 21st century. Girls will now be able to mark accomplishments on modern skills like digital filmmaking, robotics, and finance. This of course is in addition to the traditional survival skills they already practice. Frankly, Art Attack could not be happier about this, and here's why.

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As we've pointed out repeatedly, the world is going to shortly end. Which particular brand of apocalypse we'll be subjected to we haven't really determined. We're keeping our fingers crossed for monkey uprising. The point is the average Girl Scout has probably five times the survival skills that we do.

Now that they're being trained in more advanced skills we can only assume that the small pack of humanity that survives Armageddon will be led by these superwomen of peak condition abilities who control the rabble with delicious baked goods as well as displays of heroism.

Admit it, now you kind of want the world to end. Once the dust settles the Girl Scouts will continue to train generations of young female warriors. Their merit badges will of course reflect the needs of the wasteland. We'll definitely see...

Plasmid Use

Silicon Valley tycoon Peter Thiel is planning on building a real life version of Rapture from Bioshock. Not because he's a game fan with a ridiculous amount of money, but because he really thinks that an oceanic society dedicated to Randian ideals is a good idea. We give his project approximately three years before unregulated science markets murder mutant plasmids and they escape to the mainland. Luckily, the Girl Scouts will be waiting, having already trained with genetic enhancements that gift them with telekinesis and the ability to shoot lightning.

Melee Zombie Combat

Many girl scouts already train in archery, and the benefits of mastery over silent ballistics makes them much more suited for stealth combat with the undead than your average gun-toting real 'Merican. However, sometimes it comes down to just you, a ghoul, and fantasies of being Red Sonja (Ask your parents, kids). The achievement will be determined by scavenging or manufacturing ability of the weapon as well as how well they destroy the brain of a zombie with it.

Tank Commanding

As much as it pains us to admit it, Contra III and Tank Girl's pants are merrily ablaze. One cannot simply hop into a tank and become a one woman army with no training. Auto maintenance is already a merit badge, so they have a good foundation to start from when aliens descend and the situation can only be rectified with big guns and witty one-liners.

Underwater Scavenging

No matter how many times Michael Crichton called a critic a child molester for disagreeing with him on the subject, global warming is real and the seas have already begun to rise. Whether or not it will get to the Waterworld stage or not we don't know, but one way or the other a watery apocalypse will involve scavenging for relics now submerged. Any diver will tell you that cave diving is hideously dangerous and requires a lot of training. Best to start early.

Thinking With Portals

We're not saying that humanity will end up trapped in an underground facility and used as test subjects for a malicious AI like in Portal... we're saying that the Girl Scout High Council will likely up their training methods in order to assure that Scouts will be perky little Spetsnaz by emulating Portal. Surviving the obstacle course will net you this badge.

Mecha Use

We're pleased that Girl Scouts will be able to master robotics under the current system, but that's not going near far enough. Fully-functional battle armors are the only way to combat space faring bug people. Luckily, the United States has been working on this problem since the '60s. The problem is who will be able to use them when the government is blasted? The time has come to put our precious little girls where they will be safest... being the controls of a giant pink Hello Kitty dreadnought complete with rail gun.

Compliance Cover

Maybe the apocalypse isn't a burned out wasteland, and instead is more accurately depicted as an oppressive secular regime like in 1984 or perhaps a religious tyranny like in After Twilight. In either case, the Girl Scouts who make up the underground resistance will likely earn a badge for learning the perfect way to mimic a happy citizen of a despotic dictatorship. The unfortunate things is they won't be able to actually wear them without being given away.

Not Quite Human

Pod people, robots, lizardmen, the Thing, Earth is constantly having to deal with dangerous duplicates that infiltrate our midst by masquerading as a regular human. Exactly what measure will need to be taken to verify the humanity of a subject will of course be determined by the nature of the imposter. Luckily no one has yet noticed our mission... we mean, uh, this scenario is laughably farfetched.

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Gun Kata

If action movies have taught us anything it's that it's simply not enough to just shoot a guy. You have to strike a cool pose and back flip while you do it. We don't know what the connection is, but obviously it works since the bad guys are terrible shots no matter how hard they train.

Old One Linguistics

A merit badge will be awarded for the correct pronunciation of "ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." That translates to "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." Not that saying it is going to help much when the Old Ones rise to consume the world when the stars align, but hey, maybe scholarship into the forbidden text will lead the Girl Scouts to the spells to repel Cthulhu and his like. More likely it'll just drive them insane and they'll actually start helping bring about their return. The good news is they get the badge either way.

Jef Rouner is a contributing writer who covers politics, pop culture, social justice, video games, and online behavior. He is often a professional annoyance to the ignorant and hurtful.

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